An Unfortunate Encounter
by Sarah1281
Summary: While wandering the Fade, Nathaniel and Anastasia come across the spirit of his deceased father.


An Unfortunate Encounter

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age.

Note: Howe's death does not actually go the way he claims that it does.

Nathaniel Howe had never expected Anastasia Theirin née Cousland to become a friend of his. His first memory of her was of holding her as a baby and she threw up on him. Hardly the best first impression and to this day she denied it had every happened. In the years that followed, he had hung around with her older brother Fergus whenever the Howes and the Couslands got together and she trailed after them like a puppy, adorable but frustratingly persistent. She was still too young to be at all interesting eight years ago when he'd been sent to the Free Marches and he'd quickly forgotten all about Fergus' bratty little sister. Upon his return, the discovery that she had been the one to kill his father – and quite brutally from the little he could get out of Oghren – and his halfhearted assassination attempt he'd backed down on was a pretty good indication that they'd never be good terms…or so he'd thought.

Anastasia had surprised him. She'd asked him how he was with a bow and, on finding out that not only was he skilled with it but that it was his weapon of choice, had promptly conscripted him into the Grey Wardens. He'd tried to protest that he'd rather die than be forced into the organization responsible for his father's death and his entire family's fall from grace but the Hero of Ferelden had simply pointed out she was conscripting him, not asking for a volunteer. Looking back, he was actually grateful to her. The Grey Wardens wasn't as bad as he feared – certainly preferable to death – and even had she just let him go he wouldn't have had anything better to do and likely would have just ended up returning. Besides, without the Grey Wardens he wouldn't have found the best opportunity to try and redeem the Howe name or discovered that his sister was alive and that his father…well, he was a grown man and it was high time to stop hero worshipping him anyway.

So yes, against all odds Anastasia had proven a friend to him and, more than that, a damned good one. He wasn't sure if she could feel the same given his father had destroyed her life – though as the Blight-ending Queen she had certainly done a fine job rebuilding it – but when he had hesitantly brought the subject up she had quickly assured him that she didn't hold his father against him and she saw him as a friend, too. Well, that had been a relief. He was a little concerned when she had walked off cackling about how her vengeance was now complete but, knowing Anastasia, it was probably best not to ask.

While being a Grey Warden was something he enjoyed doing, it often led to some very strange situations and reminded him of that year in Kirkwall with Hawke. Take right now, for instance: they had been looking for the one Grey Warden that hadn't been at the Keep when it had been attacked but had come across his corpse…along with a talking darkspawn that had sent them all into the Fade. There were four of them so Anders and Oghren went one way while he and Anastasia were off investigating another.

They had been wandering for awhile but hadn't seen much aside from a strange circle of ritual rocks Anastasia had absolutely _insisted_ on figuring out and the same blurred scenery that appeared to be everywhere here.

Suddenly, Anastasia froze. "You…" she growled out.

Puzzled, Nathaniel turned to see what she was looking at and once he stopped moving as well. His father, or what appeared to be his father although given that this was the Fade it could just as easily be a trick, stood before him looking much older than he had the last time he had seen him. "Hello, Father."

Rendon's eyes flickered to him. "Nathaniel. Interesting company you've taken up with."

"And what is _that_ supposed to mean?" Anastasia demanded, her eyes flashing.

"Just that I would have thought that my eldest son would have had more pride and, dare I say it, common decency than to become the lapdog of the girl who destroyed the Howes," Rendon replied, his voice dripping acid.

Nathaniel didn't want to admit how much those words hit home. When Anastasia had first conscripted him, that was exactly what he felt was happening, that as the last of the Howes he was some sort of trophy for her. He knew better now, of course. He still couldn't quite bring himself to truly accept that his father was that bad when he had been living at home – his hatred for Nathaniel's mother notwithstanding – but once he'd left…well, Delilah had the gentlest soul of anyone he'd ever met. She never had a cross word to say about anybody but she'd been quite convinced that their father was a monster. Delilah was no liar and she'd been the one to spend the years he'd been off in another country with Rendon so it must be true.

"Anastasia didn't destroy the Howes, Father," Nathaniel forced the words out. He didn't doubt their veracity but it was still hard to say. "You did."

"I?" Rendon demanded angrily. "I was the one who killed myself, who killed your brother, and who stripped us of our titles? Exactly what nonsense has she been feeding you?"

"I thought that King Alistair stripped us of our titles because you were on the wrong side of the war but I was mistaken," Nathaniel continued, his voice sounding oddly detached to his ears. "You could have been on the winning side and your abuses would have still cost us dearly."

"_My_ abuses?" Rendon laughed harshly. "I have never claimed to be a paragon of virtue but there was a war going on. Certain…sacrifices needed to be made. Everything I have ever done was the glory of the Howes and the country we served! If we want to talk about abuses then why not have your _hero_ tell you what she did to me."

"You killed my family," Anastasia said in a low, measured tone. A quick glance told Nathaniel it was taking everything she had not to attack him outright. Why was she holding back? Did she want to let Nathaniel say what he needed to first? He was grateful if that were the reason.

"So I did," Rendon said dismissively. "Did I also make their deaths last for hours as I cut slices of them off while they were still living?"

Nathaniel started at this new information and, horrified, tried to meet Anastasia's eyes but she was pointedly not looking at him. Well, that would certainly explain why the King was rumored to still have nightmares about the incident. Still, he couldn't believe that of her.

"I will concede that that how I killed you was, perhaps, an unnecessarily slow way to kill you," Anastasia told him. "You can't tell me that you didn't deserve it, though. My family-"

"Oh, will you shut up about your family for two seconds?" Rendon cut him off. "That happened a full **year** before you came after me. Get over it."

"By that logic the fact that I killed you nine months ago means that _you_ should just 'get over it'," Anastasia snapped back, clearly not pleased at being told to get over what was probably the most traumatic event in her life.

"Ah, but now it's been two years since then and you're still not _nearly_ over it," Rendon told her, shaking his head in faux-pity. "Quite pathetic, really."

"Why did you do it, Father?" Nathaniel quickly spoke up as Anastasia's hand twitched towards the sword she wore on her back.

Rendon turned his gaze on him. "Why did I do what, Nathaniel? Wait, don't answer that. My answer will be the same: for the glory of the Howes and for Ferelden."

"You tried to wipe out another noble line and killed everyone down to the last man, woman, and child for the glory of the Howes?" Nathaniel couldn't believe it. It was one thing to know intellectually that your father was a monster. It was quite another to have him more or less _admit_ to it.

"Not everyone," Rendon said bitterly, glaring at Anastasia who stared right back. "And you don't understand, Nathaniel. I _had_ to do it. Every single damned Cousland success held me back. I was never going to move up in the world with them standing in my way. And yet, in the mere year after I wiped them out and before this bitch killed me, I managed to claim another Arling and even a teynir for our family! The regent was taking advice from me! If I hadn't been killed, who knows how high we could have soared?"

"It wasn't worth it," Nathaniel breathed, shaking his head as though that could change the horrible words he'd just heard. "Nobility has another meaning and that's clearly lost on you. You've proven to be as bad as the Orlesians, Father, and that's the legacy you left behind. Thomas is dead and Delilah wants nothing to do with our name so it all falls to me. I don't want it either but someone's got to work to keep us from becoming the new Drydens. Our ancestors deserve more than that."

Rendon looked contemptuously at him. "You're still such a child. 'Honor' and 'glory' is all well and good but it gets you nowhere in life, son. No one's going to hand you what you deserve, you have to _take_ it. Take it by any means necessary."

"So you say," Nathaniel said quietly. "And yet, if you'll notice we're hardly receiving any accolades here. The Howes are pariahs and if you had just left well enough alone then we'd still have an Arling. Maybe it wasn't all you dreamed of but it's more than we have now."

"Yes," Rendon agreed, much to his surprised. "Once again, the Couslands held us back and are continuing to hold us back as they poison your mind. Just look at them! Not one but _two_ teynirs and the throne as well! That should be **ours**."

It was too much. Whether this was really his father or some malicious spirit, Nathaniel could just stand here and listen to this anymore. He drew a dagger and threw it into the apparition's neck. He doubted he could kill anything in the Fade but at least that…thing was fading away now.

"Are you okay?" Anastasia asked him softly. She looked much calmer now that his father was no longer before them.

"No," Nathaniel answered shortly. "But now's hardly the time."

Anastasia reluctantly nodded and from the look on her face, Nathaniel knew he hadn't heard the end of it. That was fine by him; he probably would need to talk about it eventually, just not now. The fact that she cared enough to be willing to comfort him about the disappointment the man who had killed her family had turned out to be was nothing short of amazing.

As he said, being a Warden really wasn't that bad.

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